Midsummer censorship 

The month of July may have marked some important victories for the proponents of state censorship. In the interest of protecting the sanctity of our religion, members of the Punjab Assembly passed the Tahaffuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam Bill (TBIB), 2020 authorizing the Director-General Public Relations (DGPR) of the province to prohibit publication of and order confiscation of books considered “prejudicial to national interest, culture, religious and sectarian harmony.” Almost simultaneously the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board (PCTB) banned 100 textbooks on the ground of factual inaccuracies and objectionable content. 

Our growing intolerance of written content that does not fully align with the majoritarian religious or nationalist sensibilities is well established. Earlier this year, the Punjab Assembly passed a resolution recommending banning three of Leslie Hazleton’s books, which provide an alternative and non-Sunni account of Islamic history. Nigel Kelly’s O’Level textbook, "The History and Culture of Islam," was taken off the curriculum in 2018 on the orders of PCTB for its anti-state and anti-nationalist content. 

This summer the managing director of PCTB undertook a mega-purge of textbooks with what he referred to as factually inaccurate, unethical or illegal content. Some textbooks were banned for publishing the sayings of Mahatma Gandhi, others for depicting pictures of pigs and, in one instance, for alluding to the listening of music by a young Muslim boy after he had offered his prayers. The PCTB came under heavy criticism for what was seen as arbitrary and excessive censorship. Yet the Punjab Curriculum and Textbook Board Act, 2015, empowers it to amend, delete or withdraw any portion or the whole of a textbook, and prohibit the production, printing, publishing, sale or use of any textbook on the basis that its contents are repugnant to the injunctions of Islam, or contrary to the integrity, defense or security of Pakistan or any part of Pakistan, public order or morality. 

 In an exercise of better sense, the Punjab governor has withheld approval of the Tahaffuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam Bill into law until consensus on its contents is reached. Several members of the Punjab Assembly, who had voted in support of the bill, appear to have belatedly realized that it may lead to a serious religious divide in the country and have demanded that a fresh debate be undertaken on the proposed law.

Sahar Zareen Bandial

The vesting of such discretionary powers in an entity comprising mostly bureaucrats who may not necessarily have the requisite knowledge and experience of curriculum development and whose own (at times misplaced) notions of morality and nationalism weigh in to determine what the children in Punjab are taught is, to say the least, problematic. The managing director of the PCTB has since been removed from office, but the fate of the 100 or so banned textbooks is still unclear. 

Under the TBIB, 2020, the DGPR, otherwise tasked with the dissemination of information, public relations and projection of official policies, activities and development programs of the province of Punjab, has now been entrusted with the additional responsibility of regulating the import, printing or publishing of books (other than textbooks). Under Section 8(3), the DGPR may unilaterally prohibit the import and publishing of and order seizure of any book, which contains content “prejudicial to national interest, culture, and religious and sectarian harmony.” This yardstick for prohibition/seizure remains undefined, its interpretation and enforcement left entirely to the discretion and opinion of the DGPR. Seminal works on religion, literature, science or history may be off limits if their content offends the sensibilities of the DGPR. 

In an open letter to the Punjab Assembly, several hundreds of members of civil society rightly questioned the competence of the DGPR to determine what people in Punjab may or may not read, and that too without permitting a hearing to an alternate viewpoint. The letter also questioned the legal basis of the yardstick for prohibition/seizure set out in Section 8(3), which differs significantly from the constitutionally permissible limits on free speech articulated in Article 19 of the Constitution of Pakistan. 

The Bill has elicited mixed reactions from government quarters. The Punjab chief minister hailed the TBIB as a historic step that would promote interreligious harmony and block publication of controversial material. Federal Minister for Information Fawad Chaudhry, on the other hand, voiced concern that the Bill will have the effect of “[plunging] us deep into sectarianism and religious extremism,” by providing greater room for censure of written material not in line with the majoritarian Sunni viewpoint.  Members of the Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM), a Shiite political group, have criticized the Bill on similar counts. 

In an exercise of better sense, the Punjab governor has withheld approval of the Tahaffuz-e-Bunyad-e-Islam Bill into law until consensus on its contents is reached. Several members of the Punjab Assembly, who had voted in support of the bill, appear to have belatedly realized that it may lead to a serious religious divide in the country and have demanded that a fresh debate be undertaken on the proposed law. It is lamentable that our legislators did not read the Bill, or ponder over its consequences, before voting in its favor. Though not passed into law yet, the TBIB has not been withdrawn. 

The midsummer victories of proponents of state-censorship may not have reached fruition after all.  Yet the happenings of last month are clear warnings of the fragility of the right of free speech and expression in our country, and the state’s continued tendency to control the dissemination of knowledge and development of thought, lest it vary from a particular, state-endorsed agenda. 

- Sahar Zareen Bandial is an Advocate of the High Courts and a member of the Adjunct Faculty at the Shaikh Ahmad Hassan School of Law, LUMs. She has a keen interest in gender issues and has worked extensively in the area of legislative drafting.